asus a8v deluxe and Marvel gigabit

[Lynn McGuire]

I am having trouble with the networking locking up on my Asus A8V Deluxe
motherboard. I am running Windows XP Pro SP2 with a AMD dual core
4800+ cpu. I have a 1000 Mbit network. My networking is locking up
about once or twice per day.

I am using the latest device driver from Marvel, version 8.35.2.3.
http://www.marvell.com/drivers/driverDisplay.do?dId=116&pId=3

Is anyone else having trouble with the Marvel networking ? Should I get
a 3Com 1000 Mbit card ? What a pain !

Thanks,
Lynn

 

[Tony DiMarzio]

Hello Lynn,

Excellent: Someone to corroborate the bug I've found.

Lynn, the Marvell, Yukon 10/100/1000 chipset on your A8V Deluxe IS, in fact,
very good. I have been very pleased with it in my setup (below) until about
last week, when I allowed "Windows Update" to update my driver revision to
8.35.2.3.

Previous to version 8.35.2.3 of the Yukon driver, my system was solid as a
rock. I could leave the thing running in my room without the AC on (yields
like 95f ambient in the summer) for days at a time and it would never lock
up. Immediately after installing 8.35.2.3, I noticed that my system would
lock up COMPLETELY (No kernel Panic, No message in the event viewer, No disk
activity, nothing! Just a hard bus lock) at random intervals during the day.
The system would not go even two days without crashing. At first, I
suspected something other than the 8.35.2.3 network driver. Normally, a
network driver should be able to bring down the system like that.

So, I ran memtest for 2 days straight. Gave me 60 some passes without a
single error. Checked my voltage rails... they were fine too. Ran PRIME95
for a few hours. No problem there either. Next I figured what the hey and
reverted 8.35.2.3 to the driver that came with my A8V deluxe and WHAM.
Completely stable again. No lockups. No problems. I also tried the driver
straight off of Marvell's website at
http://www.marvell.com/drivers/driverDisplay.do?dId=116&pId=3 to rule out
any problem specific to the version on MS' servers. This driver also
resulted in lockups.

Please validate or invalidate my test results. If we find that it definitely
is a problem with 8.35.2.3 we should submit to Marvell Inc. as a bug.

Thanks,

----------------------------------------------
Windows XP (2600-Professional) w/ SP2
AMD Socket 939 Athlon 64 FX-53, 1MB L2 Cache (2.4ghz@200mhz-FSB)
ASUS "A8V Deluxe Wi-Fi" K8T800 Pro (BIOS: 1011)
VIA Hyperion 4in1 456v
1024mb (2 x (512mb OCZ Platinum EL (2-3-2-5) DDR400/PC3200) Dual Channel)
[OCZ4001024ELDCPE-K]
ATI Radeon 9800 Pro (Catalyst 4.10) (C-378mhz / M-337.5mhz) OC to
(C-411.75mhz / M-360.00mhz)
SbAudigy 5.1 (PCI-Slot 3)

*Promise FastTrak 378 (PDC20378) 2+0/RAID 0*
120gb Western Digital WD1200JB (RAID 1of2)
120gb Western Digital WD1200JB (RAID 2of2)

16x HI-VAL DVDRom (BDV316C) secondary/master
Plextor (PX-716SA) VIA SATA-1

LianLi PC-6070 *Silent* Aluminum Mid-Tower Case | 2x80mm intake fans, 1x80mm
exhaust fan, 1x slot cooler
OCZ Modstream 520watt PSU | +3.3V(28A), +5V(52A), +12V(28A)

 

[Lynn McGuire]

Lynn, the Marvell, Yukon 10/100/1000 chipset on your A8V Deluxe IS, in fact, very good. I have been very pleased with it in my

setup (below) until about last week, when I allowed "Windows Update" to update my driver revision to 8.35.2.3.

My previous network device driver was having network timeouts. I do
a lot of LAN file locking so it becomes immediately obvious when there
are network issues.

This new version of the device driver does not have timeouts. It just locks
up and I have to reboot in order to get networking working again. A
couple of times my entire pc has locked up also.

The system would not go even two days without crashing. At first, I suspected something other than the 8.35.2.3 network driver.
Normally, a network driver should be able to bring down the system like that.

Should or should not ???

Please validate or invalidate my test results. If we find that it definitely is a problem with 8.35.2.3 we should submit to
Marvell Inc. as a bug.

I looked at their site. They dont seem to be consumer friendly whatsoever.

Lynn

 

[Asus Rocks!]

Hello ...I just installed that same new driver on my a8v-e deluxe mobo
,seems to run fine for me ,If i notice any problems i will just have to
rollback to the previous version ...I did update my bios today aswell before
installing the new marvel driver ...bios version is june 24 2005 .

 

[Tony DiMarzio]

My previous network device driver was having network timeouts. I do
a lot of LAN file locking so it becomes immediately obvious when there
are network issues.

This new version of the device driver does not have timeouts. It just
locks
up and I have to reboot in order to get networking working again. A
couple of times my entire pc has locked up also.


Should or should not ???

should NOT - sorry, didn't proof read my email.

I looked at their site. They dont seem to be consumer friendly
whatsoever.

That's because they don't sell direct to EU's. Other vendors incorporate
their silicon.

Try the driver rev immediately preceding 8.35.2.3. If you can't find it I'll
post it on my FTP.

 

[Lynn McGuire]

Please validate or invalidate my test results. If we find that it definitely is a problem with 8.35.2.3 we should submit to

That's because they don't sell direct to EU's. Other vendors incorporate their silicon.

Try the driver rev immediately preceding 8.35.2.3. If you can't find it I'll post it on my FTP.

Please post the previous device driver and I will try that. I still do not
know how to complain to Marvell about the current device driver.

Thanks,
Lynn

 

[Lynn McGuire]

Please post the previous device driver and I will try that. I still do not
know how to complain to Marvell about the current device driver.

Or you can email it to me "lmc at winsim dot com"

I put a complaint about the device driver at http://www.marvell.com/contact/cust_support.do .

Thanks,
Lynn

 

[Paul]

I am having trouble with the networking locking up on my Asus A8V Deluxe
motherboard. I am running Windows XP Pro SP2 with a AMD dual core
4800+ cpu. I have a 1000 Mbit network. My networking is locking up
about once or twice per day.

I am using the latest device driver from Marvel, version 8.35.2.3.
http://www.marvell.com/drivers/driverDisplay.do?dId=116&pId=3

Is anyone else having trouble with the Marvel networking ? Should I get
a 3Com 1000 Mbit card ? What a pain !

Thanks,
Lynn

"Should I get a 3Com 1000 Mbit card ?"

Not if it uses the same Marvell chip you are having problems with
Even 3COM has used a Marvell chip in the past.

An Intel card should put some distance between you and Marvell.
Try pricewatch.com and search for "Intel gigabit". This is the
cheapest card I could find. There are a number of companies selling
these. Run the part number and model number through Google or the
private forums, to see if it has a clean bill of health.

82540EM based ? shop around for best price (PWLA8390MT)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16833106112

Otherwise, I would track down another version of driver for
the Marvell chip. I wouldn't expect much from Marvell, as I don't
see any way of contacting them with reports of driver issues.

You could report your problem to Asus, if you are in a generous
mood.

The users of P5P800 boards (same 88E8001 LAN chip) report problems
as well. This is from the Asus forums. Rollback to a previous driver
fixed the freezes. The link below is lousy, but I don't know how to
make a better link that will yield the entire page image.

"Motherboard - Gigabit LAN Problems"
http://vip.asus.com/forum/bbs_view....anguage=en-us&topic_page=1&page_cnt=5&recc=45

Paul

 

[Lynn McGuire]

Oops. The marvell website does not contain a driver archive, and I don't

Yup, I tried all different kinds of methods to get an earlier driver. No soap.

have the drivers archived locally here either. Did you try the driver that was bundled with your A8V?

This one:

http://dlsvr03.asus.com/pub/ASUS/lan/marvell/Marvell630.zip

Yup, that driver caused me major problems also. At least it bothered to
reset itself automatically. However, the timeouts happened every 10 to
15 minutes. No good !

Thanks,
Lynn

 

[Lynn McGuire]

http://dlsvr03.asus.com/pub/ASUS/lan/marvell/Marvell630.zip

Great! Let me know how it turns out.

No crashes since I installed it 3 days ago ! Woo hoo !

Lynn

 

[Tony DiMarzio]

No crashes since I installed it 3 days ago ! Woo hoo !

Lynn

Great! Can you upload the driver to ftp://djraid.dyndns.org/upload/ please?
I can't find it anywhere.

Thanks

Tony

 

[Lynn McGuire]

Marvell just sent me version 7.24. I will see how this one works.

Great! Can you upload the driver to ftp://djraid.dyndns.org/upload/ please? I can't find it anywhere.

Done.

Lynn

 

[Tony DiMarzio]

Excellent! Thanks.

Now we get to see if Marvell fixes things for the next driver release. I
tried to submit a bug report to them but their web interface is severely
lacking. I had a small edit box with which to type the whole damn bug report
in.

Thanks again! and glad you have a stable system again.

 

[Lynn McGuire]

Now we get to see if Marvell fixes things for the next driver release. I tried to submit a bug report to them but their web

interface is severely lacking. I had a small edit box with which to type the whole damn bug report in.

Thanks again! and glad you have a stable system again.

Bummer. I have had two network errors this afternoon.

Marvell sucks ! I have ordered a 3com gigabit NIC card.

Lynn

 

[Tony DiMarzio]

Lynn,

This is Marvell's reponse to my bug report.
-------------------------------------------------
Hi Tony,

Thank-you for bringing this issue to our attention. We are currently
looking into a bug we found that the v8.35.2.3 driver has with the 88E8001
chipset. There will be a new driver released when this issue has been
resolved and the driver is tested and certified.

Kind regards,

Terry Appling, Technical Support

www.marvell.com
www.syskonnect.com
408-222-0666

Product:: 88E8001
Subject::: XP driver issue

Customer Correspondence:
New! Aug 22, 2005 - 01:20 PM Central Standard Time - Maggie Kwan
Latest Windows XP Yukon driver (v.8.35.2.3), whether acquired from Windows
Update OR Marvell website, causes machine to lockup at random intervals.
Normally the lockup occurs while the machine is being used remotely with
RDP. I have verified, systematically, and thoroughly, that it is most
definitely
the driver's fault. Reverting to version (6.30.0.0 WHQL) - the version that
came
with the A8V mobo - fixes the problem.

Please advise. IS this a recognized issue? Will it be addressed in the next
driver release?

First Name: Tony
Last Name: DiMarzio

-------------------------------------------------

--
Tony DiMarzio
(e-mail address removed)
(e-mail address removed)

 

[Lynn McGuire]

This is Marvell's reponse to my bug report.

-------------------------------------------------
Hi Tony,

Thank-you for bringing this issue to our attention. We are currently
looking into a bug we found that the v8.35.2.3 driver has with the 88E8001
chipset. There will be a new driver released when this issue has been
resolved and the driver is tested and certified.

I wonder if they will bother to notify us about the new driver ?

Thanks,
Lynn

 

[Lynn McGuire]

"Should I get a 3Com 1000 Mbit card ?"

Not if it uses the same Marvell chip you are having problems with
Even 3COM has used a Marvell chip in the past.

The 3com NICs that I bought have a big M on the chip.

"Motherboard - Gigabit LAN Problems"
http://vip.asus.com/forum/bbs_view....anguage=en-us&topic_page=1&page_cnt=5&recc=45

Well, at least we are not in this ditch alone.

Thanks,
Lynn